


The light behind your eyes

by Intheeyeofthehurricane



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternative Universe - Enjolras Survives, Amputation, Angst, Canon Era, Enjolras Angst, Enjolras Has Feelings, F/M, Hurt, I am so sorry, I'm Bad At Tagging, Javert Lives, M/M, Marisette - Freeform, Period-Typical Homophobia, Post-Barricade, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sick Enjolras, Slow Burn, Whump, alternative universe - grantaire survives, enjoltaire - Freeform, jean valjean adopts everyone, seriously I'm horrified by my own fic this has a lot of angst, shitty parents
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-10
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-13 19:08:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 13,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28658481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Intheeyeofthehurricane/pseuds/Intheeyeofthehurricane
Summary: The barricade fell. The National Guard shots the leader of les Amis de l'ABC, but not the man beside him. But it seems that it takes a little more than a few bullets to kill the blonde boy.Or how I like to call it: Jean Valjean adopts everyone he sees.
Relationships: Cosette Fauchelevent/Marius Pontmercy, Enjolras/Grantaire (Les Misérables)
Comments: 20
Kudos: 35





	1. Blood shed

**Author's Note:**

“Do you permit it?”

Those were Grantaire’s last words.

The last words of the cynic who went to the Les Amis meetings just to bother, drink and sketch on his stupid sketchbook which he didn’t allow anyone to see.

Enjolras never understood why he went to the meetings. He didn’t care about politics, he didn’t believe in anything.

“I believe in you”-Grantaire’s voice sounded in Enjolras’ memory. And suddenly, he understood everything.

Enjolras smiled at him and took his hand under the eyes of the National Guard who were aiming at them with their bayonets.

The leader of the revolutionaries turned to face his dead with a smile, and the smile didn't fade when five bullets were fired in their direction.

Four of them nailed under Enjolras’ skin, the fifth one got nailed to the wall.

Enjolras took a look at Grantaire for the last time before the pain of his wounds took him into unconsciousness.

But Grantaire wasn’t physically wounded, he was standing still.

And Enjolras felt happy for him, he felt happy because at least Grantaire wasn’t going to die.

His deep green eyes, filled with angst and desperation were the last thing Enjolras saw before he felt unconscious.

Grantaire felt how the people that just sentenced Enjolras to death abandoned the place and they left him alone with the dying body of the blonde boy.

Enjolras wasn’t breathing anymore. Grantaire tried to bring him back to life just how Joly had teached him a few years ago, but it was useless.

He looked at his own hands, which were stained with Enjolras blood and at that moment he knew that all hope was lost.

He hugged Enjolras body desperately while he started crying out loud.

Every light in his world had gone out with Enjolras, and without him, there was only darkness.

But it was minutes after when Grantaire noticed something that filled him with hope again: Enjolras’ heart was still beating.

And then a worried voice that didn’t belong to anyone that Grantaire knew:

“Hello?”


	2. A man who came from Heaven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I changed the fic's title, as you may notice I had an emo fase

They were safe.

Or at least as safe they could possibly be given the circumstances.

A few minutes after Enjolras was shot, a man had appeared on the second floor of the Corinthe carrying an unconscious Marius in his arms and had offered to help them.

Like a miracle, this man came from Heaven.

The man made a tourniquet for Enjolras’ leg, which was bleeding way too much and they escaped the fallen barricade through a hole without being seen.

For a second, Grantaire managed to see the corpses laying right where they died. The corpses of his friends who he deeply loves. But at this point, Grantaire was in shock and he was not able to process what he saw. The tears and the grief would come later.

The man was extremely strong –Grantaire noticed-, he did not allow him to carry Enjolras, even after Grantaire insisted for five minutes straight. The man carried both boys in his arms and he did it without any trouble.

Somehow, they made it safely to Marius’ grandfather’s house. They left Marius at his grandfather’s care and they left to the man’s house, which he said wasn’t very far from there.

Marius was hopefully going to survive, but he was shot on the shoulder so his arm would probably have to go through a long recovery.

Grantaire noticed then that Enjolras was a lot more paler than before, most likely due to the loss of blood. His wounds were bleeding and the man said that some of the bullets were still inside him.

He feared then the worst. That Enjolras would die. But he couldn’t give up, not if there was still hope that Enjolras could survive.

They arrived at the number 4 of the rue de l’homme armé. There was almost no one on the streets that day, that early in the morning, so it wasn’t very probable that someone had seen them.

A woman opened the door of the house. There was a lady with a worried expression on her face behind the older woman.

“Papa? Wha-”

“Go and find a doctor, we have no time to lose.”

The girl abeyed and left the house without a word.

They entered the house and Grantaire followed the man upstairs, where he laid Enjolras on a bed while they waited for the doctor.

Grantaire was in shock, he did not know what to do or what to say, he stayed silent and still unable to process any emotion. Enjolras was growing paler and paler every second.

He looked at the man who offered to help them in an act of altruism. He didn’t even know his name –Grantaire realiced-. But he was helping them, and even if Grantaire didn’t know which were his reasons for doing that, he was already grateful. He had decided to trust him, even if he didn’t know why he was helping them.

The man’s housekeeper offered him a glass of water and he took it.

About ten minutes after they arrived they heard noises downstairs. It was the girl and the doctor who came with her. They went upstairs to meet the others. The man explained quickly to the doctor what happened. The doctor said that they were safe with him and that he wasn’t going to turn them in.

In other circumstances, Grantaire would have felt relieved, but Enjolras was still in danger.

Then the doctor locked himself in the bedroom with Enjolras so he could work in peace.

The doctor stayed in the bedroom alone working on Enjolras for five hours. Grantaire lost the notion of time, he couldn’t say if they’ve been there for minutes or years.  
The man spent most of that time praying.

“Yes”-Grantaire thought-“he definitely comes from Heaven”

He discovered a few things about the man who was helping them. First of all, his name was Monsieur Fauchelevent. He entered the barricades at some point and helped the insurgents. The girl was his only daughter, Cosette. Marius was the reason why he went to the barricades, he wanted to save him for his daughter, who was deeply in love with him.

The man and his daughter were the only habitants of the house, apart from Toussaint, their housekeeper.

“We have a spare bedroom for you to stay”-Monsieur Fauchelevant said to Grantaire.

Grantaire didn’t seem like he was listening. He was sitting on a chair, with the glass of water still on his shaking hands, his eyes looking nowhere.

“It is dangerous for anyone who were at the barricades to stay at their own homes right now, the police may be searching for escaped insurgents the next few days. I don’t know if you are well known, I don’t know if the police knows your name, but I know that the blond boy is a leader, so they probably want him in jail”-Monsieur Fauchelevent continued. “And we won’t allow them to take him if we can avoid it”.

Grantaire didn’t answer, he just kept looking to nowhere.

“I would be good if you stayed here for a time, I can’t force you, of course but I think that the boy is going to appreciate seeing a familiar face when he wakes up”

“Is he going to wake up?”-Grantaire asked, looking at Monsieur Fauchelevent with eyes watering.

Those were Grantaire’s first words since they arrived the house and he regretted them the same moment they came out of his mouth.

“I…”-Monsieur Fauchelevent didn’t get to finish his answer because the doctor stepped inside the living room where they were sitting with his hands and clothes stained with blood, with Enjolras’ blood.

The three of them –Grantaire, Monsieur Fauchelevent and Cosette- looked at him with their hearts beating rapidly on their chests.

“He is alive”-They all felt relieved at his words-“Out of danger, for now, but he has a difficult recovery ahead. He was shot four times, two of those bullets, the two on his leg, were nailed under his skin and I had to take the one on his upper leg out”.

“And what about the other bullet, why didn’t you take it out?”-Cosette asked out loud the same question Grantaire was trying to articulate.

“Well, that’s the reason why it took me that much time”-The noticed that the doctor was nervous.

“What do you mean?”-Asked Monsieur Fauchelevent calmly.

“The boy had a tourniquet above his knee, on the leg where the bullets nailed”-He talked slowly, letting his words sink in. Monsieur Fauchelevent had put that tourniquet there when he found them on the second floor of the Corinthe, so Enjolras would not bleed out-“That was a good decision, he might have died from blood loss without that tourniquet. The thing with tourniquets is that they are dangerous, if you put too much pressure or you have it for too much time it can cut off all the blood circulation”.

“What are you trying to say”-Grantaire cut him off.

“The boy lost his leg, am I right, monsieur?”-Monsieur Fauchelevent’s words made Grantaire freeze and suddenly he felt sick.

The doctor nodded and Cosette gasped in horror.

“I’m so sorry, I assure you I did everything that was on my hands, but there was no possibility of saving his leg, I had to amputate it, just above his left knee”.

Grantaire left the living room without a word. Cosette tried to go after him but Fauchelevent stopped her.

“Let him be”

The doctor left them some indications about the recovery. He said that the boy was not going to wake up on a day or two, because he was very weak from the loss of blood and the pain. He also said that it was very probable that the boy was going to get into a shock when he finds out about his leg. He was going to have to stay on bed rest for a few months and after that he would have to learn to move around with a crutch and live with a missing limb.

He also said he would come back on a couple of days, and told them to summon him if something happened.

After that, the doctor left the house.

The house fell silent and Fauchelevent sat on the couch.

“Poor boy”-he muttered.

“So, aren’t you mad at me?”-Cosette asked.

“Mad? Why on Earth would I be mad at you?”

“For not telling you about Marius”.

“Oh, my dear, no. I’m not mad at you. I think I can understand why talking to your father about your love live can be uncomfortable, it doesn’t matter, everyone has the right to have their secrets.”

“Thank you, papa”.

“Why?”

“For saving Marius, and for saving his friends”.  
“I could have saved more of them, but everything happened so quickly. They were alive, fighting, and then, just a second later, they were dead. They were so young, Cosette. With all their lives ahead of them.”

“Don’t think about that, you did everything you could possibly do. You are only a human, you can’t save everyone”

“I know”.

A memory of Fantine on her dying bed crossed Fauchelevent’s mind.

There was a moment of silence, but not an uncomfortable one.

“I love you papa”

Fauchelevent half smiled.

“Do you think I can go visit Marius at his grandfather’s house?”-said Cosette.

Fauchelevent didn’t have time to answer because they heard something crack in the garden. And then a frustrated scream.

They both ran outside to see the origin of the sound and they found Grantaire in the garden, sitting on the floor, his hand bleeding and a broken flower pot at his feet.

He was crying.

Cosette had only known Grantaire for a few hours, but seeing him in that state, mixed with the whirlwind of emotions she has had in the past few days, made her eyes fill with tears.

She walked through the garden all the way to Grantaire and sat beside him.

She tried to comfort him by passing her arm through his shoulders as he laid his head on her chest hiding his face with his hands.

He was shaking, his face covered by tears.

She ran her hand through his hair trying to comfort him.

“I don’t deserve to be comforted”-He muttered after a time.

“Don’t say that! That is not true!”-Cosette cried.

Grantaire started crying even louder instead of arguing with Cosette. He felt like he was the worst person alive at that moment.

He was the one who should have died, not his friends. They were all filled with hope for a new world he never believed in. And now they were dead.

And the worst of it was that their sacrifice has been for nothing. Nothing at all, that is what his friends gave their lifes for.

The National Guard did not shoot him. But, why? Did they take him by a simple drunkyard? If that was the reason they were not wrong, he had to admit it.

Or maybe they pitied him. The pitied him so they let him live, not knowing that without his friends his life no longer made sense.

Or maybe they knew, by the look on his eyes, that a life like that was a fate worse than death.

Maybe Enjolras was right: he was incapable of dying.

Oh, Enjolras.

It broke his heart the idea of him not being able to walk ever again. It made him feel sick the idea that he was going to have permanent scars that would remind him forever of what he's been through.

He just wished that his spirit was not as broken as his body.

He suddenly felt the need to see him, to make sure that he was still breathing, to make sure that he hadn’t faded away.

“I need to see him”-He muttered through the tears.

Monsieur Fauchelevent and Cosette accompanied him through the garden and through the house till they reached the door of the room where Enjolras was sleeping.

Fauchelevent opened the door and Grantaire saw him lying in the bed, with his eyes closed. His blonde curls laying on the pillow like a halo around his head. His cheeks were pale and his lips had lost their rosy color. He had acquired dark eye bags. But he was still breathing. Grantaire could see his chest going up and down weakly.

“He is going to survive”-Grantaire said mentaly to himself-“The doctor said he was out of danger”

Grantaire saw the bandages on his injured shoulder and his arm in a sling. The rest of the bandages and injuries were covered by the blankets.

Grantaire looked at the feet of the bed. There was only one bulge on the blanket where his feet should be.

Grantaire felt a pain in his soul and a single tear crossed his cheek.

Even sleeping, he was in pain, Grantaire could see it on his expression.

“You should try to sleep, you must be tired with everything that happened in the past hours”-Fauchelevent said to Grantaire.

“Can I sleep here?”

“But there is only one bed”.

“I’ll sleep on the chair”.

He didn’t want to be alone. And he didn’t want to leave Enjolras alone. He had to be there for him, because they only had each other now, he had to be strong for him.

“If that’s what you wish…”-Monsieur Fauchelevent said-“Are you sure? This house is big, there are more bedrooms, you don’t have to sleep on a chair”.

“I’ll stay here, I don’t want to leave him alone”.

“Alright, let me know if you need something, I sleep in the bedroom down the hall”.

And so they left.

Grantaire wanted to stay up all night. He wanted to be awake if Enjolras woke up. He knew the doctor said that he probably wouldn’t be conscious in three days or so, but he didn’t want to take the risk of Enjolras waking up to see that he had a missing leg and a drunkard sleeping beside him. At least the drunkyard would be awake to comfort him.

And he had slept enough during all the fighting –he reminded himself- he was sleeping while his friends were bleeding and dying.

But he fell asleep two hour after Cosette and Fauchelent left. The psychological tiredness won him. And by the way, he already felt like he was dreaming while awake, he felt like he was inside a nightmare.

He had no dreams or nightmares that night.

The real nightmare was outside his head.

The real nightmare was his reality.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you have reached this far ilysm <3


	3. Awakenings

He was always awake before sunrise.

It was a habit he had acquired in his years as a prisoner.

He was always the first one in the house to wake up, even before Toissaint.

Monsieur Fauchelevent walked downstairs to the kitchen and prepared himself a cup of coffee.

He drank it, looking at the garden through the window, pensative.

Inspector Javert was on his mind, and he couldn’t get him out of it.

Why didn’t he go to arrest him yet? He gave him his direction. It would be an easy job. He would not offer any resistance.

Then, why?

Maybe he thought he was lying at him and it was not his real direction?

No. Javert was not stupid, he would have tried at least.

His gaze fell on something laying in the garden.

The flower pot Grantaire broke the past evening.

His hand was probably hurt, but the wound was probably closed already.

And it wasn’t going to leave a scar.

Enjolras couldn’t say the same.

Fauchelevent decided to prepare a cup of tea for Grantaire, tea always had helped Cosette for her nerves, specially when she was little and used to have nightmares very often.

Maybe it would help Grantaire as well.

He went back upstairs and entered quietly in the room where Enjolras and Grantaire were sleeping.

The blond boy looked pale, but not as pale as he had looked just a day before.

With his eyes closed he could not see that raging fire he had seen on his eyes at the barricade.

He looked so different from how he had looked just two days before, nothing like the strong unafraid young man he saw leading revolutionaries to conquer their right of freedom, equality and fraternity beyond humanity.

He liked those ideals –Fauchelevent though- but the price they paid for them was excessively high.

Blood and death in exchange for freedom.

And they hadn’t even gotten their reward for all the blood they had bled and shed.

Their reward was the Republic, but they were still living under a monarchy.

He deviated his attention toward the other boy, who was sleeping in an uncomfortable position.

He didn’t remember seeing him while the fighting was taking place, but maybe he had been too focused on Marius to pay attention to the other insurgents.

The light of the sunrise filtered through the curtains and hit Grantaire’s face.

He half opened his eyes, the immense light bothered him so he closed them again trying to go back to sleep.

A flash of the beginning of the construction of the barricade crossed his mind.

He remembered Enjolras’ cold words when they argued moments before falling asleep at the Corinthe.

His smile when he took his hand under the gaze of the National Guard.

The blast of bayonets and the smell of blood and gunpowder.

He remembered the man with the unconscious Marius in his arms.

Blurry images of his friends, laying dead, covered with blood and dust.

The girl and the housekeeper.

The doctor and Enjolras’ mutilated leg.

He remembered everything, and hoped it was just a nightmare.

“Good morning, how did you sleep?”

A deep gentle voice echoing on the silence made him realize that he did not dream that.

He opened his eyes to see Monsieur Fauchelevent standing in front of him with a cup of what seemed to be tea on his hands.

Grantaire stared at him for a moment, the question the man had made was a silly one.

His back hurt from sleeping on a chair and his eyes were swollen from the tears he had cried the day before. He only had slept for five hours so he did not have rest at all.

“This is for you”-Said Fauchelevent offering him the cup-. “You will feel better after you drink it”.

“Thank you”.

Grantaire was looking at the sleeping Enjolras now. In the same position than the night before, a sign that he hadn’t woken up, as the doctor had said.

Though he was still very pale, he had a better color than before and his breathing was a little more normal. He was getting better.

“He is going to be fine”-Fauchelevent’s tone was trying to be comforting- “Someday”.

“It’s not fair”.

“I know”.

“He did not deserve this”.

“I know”.

“Why did you save us?”.

“Excuse me”

“Why did you save us?” –repeated Grantaire, with an imploring tone this time “You did not know me and as long as I know you did not know him either, then why would you help two strangers risking your own life for it?”

“I-” -He didn’t know how to answer this.- “You will have to excuse me if I don’t get into details.” -Grantaire was looking at him, with an inscrutable expression- “I made a promise a long time ago. I used to be a bad person, life had been rough with me and I paid my anger with everyone else.”

He stopped for a second to check if the boy was judging him, but in his eyes there was just a growing curiosity.

Monsieur Fauchelevent continued:

“Someone helped me to get out of the darkness and become a better person, so I always try to offer my help to anyone who may need it”.

Grantaire nodded and his eyes went back to look at Enjolras.

Fauchelevent felt relieved that he didn’t ask for the details of his story, he could not simply tell him, not even Cosette knew about it.

“Thank you” -Said Grantaire before sipping from his cup- “For saving him”.

“You are welcome”.

The room was silent again.

They stayed where they were for a moment, with their gazes fixed on the sleeping Enjolras.

“The doctor will come later, to check on him and change his bandages I think”

Grantaire nodded as a response.

There was nothing more to say, there were no words to express his pain.

Marius woke up at midday with a stabbing pain in his shoulder.

“Thank God”

A familiar voice.

Where the hell was he?

He tried to sit up in bed but the dizziness wouldn’t let him.

“Be easy, son”

It was his grandfather’s voice -he realized-. But, how?

He opened his eyes.

He was in his grandfather’s house, in his bed.

The old man was sitting next to him. Whipping his forehead with a wet towel.

“What happened?” -muttered Marius with a weak voice.

The last thing he remembered was thinking that he was going to be taken prisoner.

But he wasn't a prisoner.

He was home.

How?

“Doesn’t matter, the only thing that matters now is that you are alive and that you are here with us again”.

He had a lot of questions but he didn’t know where to start asking.

The pain in his shoulder and his head pushed him back into the unconsciousness.

By the next time he woke up, there was a beautiful lady with brownish locks and blue eyes looking fondly at him next to his bed.

“Cosette” -His voice was still weak.

“Hush”-She was smiling, yet she had tears in her eyes.

She whipped them away and searched for Marius’ good hand -the one that was not on a sling.

“You are here” -He ignored Cosette’s order to don’t speak.

“I am here” -She confirmed.

Two days passed, then three, a whole week, two.

And Enjolras hadn’t woken up yet.

The doctor said that it was normal given the magnitude of his wounds but he could wake up at any moment.

Grantaire started to get used to the routine of the house: He woke up every morning in Enjolras’ bedroom -Monsieur Fauchelevent helped him move a spare bed so he didn’t have to sleep in the chair, since he refused to sleep in another bedroom-, then he went downstairs to meet with Monsieur Fauchelevent and Cosette -She basically forced him out of the bedroom the third day after the barricades, because he wouldn’t go out if it was for him-, he spent the rest of the day walking around the house or reading on Enjolras’ bedroom.

He didn’t want to think.

He used to overthink, but that was before.

Now he refused to face reality.

He didn’t want to think about his friends’ deaths, about their funerals, which at this point had been probably celebrated. He didn’t want to think of the way their lifes had changed. He didn’t want to think about all he had lost, all Enjolras had lost.

But sometimes thinking was inevitable.

And when that happened, he always ended up trying to find Monsieur Fauchelevent’s stock of wine.

The man had noticed Grantaire’s need for drowning his sorrows on alcohol and had hidden it.

Grantaire never succeeded in his search, so he ended up crying of frustration.

Every time that happened, Cosette spoke to him of things that had nothing to do with death, grief and fallen barricades trying to calm him down.

Cosette, Monsieur Fauchelevent and even Toussaint would go to Enjolras’ bedroom to talk to Grantaire so he wouldn't get bored and think too much.

“Are you in terms with your family?”-Monsieur Fauchelevent asked one of those evenings, when both men were sitting alone next to Enjolras.

“Not really”-Grantaire rarely looked up when someone talked to him while being in their bedroom, he was always looking at the blond boy, like hypnotized.

“Oh, sorry. I didn’t mean to bring up a delicate subject”

“Don’t worry, I don’t care” -he fell silent for a moment before continuing- “I can’t remember my mother, she died when I was just a child, giving birth to my only brother, who is a little shit, I can’t stand him. And my father hates me”.

“I’m sure he doesn’t…”

“Oh yes, he does”. -There is not an ounce of sadness in his tone, he had accepted his father’s feeling about him a long time ago- “He always expected me to be all he never got to be, but I am just the same as him. That's the reason he hates me so much, because I remind him of himself, and he hates himself”.

Monsieur Fauchelevent stayed silent, with his worried gaze fixed at him.

“They were my family”. -Grantaire said, still looking at Enjolras with a lost look- “Bossuet, Joly, Bahorel, Courfeyrac, Feuilly, Jehan, Combeferre. We had formed the closest thing of a family I’ve ever been part of”.

“You miss them”

Grantaire looked up to Monsieur Fauchelevent this time.

“Every single second it passes. But, for some reason I…”. -His voice cracked, he stopped for a second to continue talking- “I saw them lying where they died, when we got out of the barricade, but I can’t digest the fact that I will never see them again, that they won’t enter that door to get us out of here and go fool around the Musain”. -Grantaire breathed slowly, trying to control the tears on his eyes- “And the worst part of this is that the world they died for does not exist. They gave their lifes for nothing. They were fighting to bring a Republic to France, now they are dead and Louis Phillipe is still sitting on his throne”.

“Their cause was a noble one”.

“And the people” -Grantaire seemed not to hear the man’s aportation-, “the people they were fighting for, they abandoned them when they needed help”.

“Shoot me”

They both looked at Enjolras alarmed, he was talking in dreams, stirring.

“Cosette!” -Monsieur Fauchelevent called.

Enjolras started mumbling unintelligible words, his eyes still closed.

The girl appeared at the door just a second after. Her father told her to call the doctor and she went to her mission.

Grantaire stayed in his chair, unable to move, panicking.

The older man went beside Enjolras, trying to calm him down.

“Hey, it’s fine it’s just a nightmare”

And then, he opened his eyes with difficulty, breathing heavily.

“Wha…”

“It’s ok, you’re ok”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry I know I leave you on a cliffhanger.  
> But I'm already working on the next chapter.  
> Also I edited some grammatical mistakes on the previous chapters.  
> I hope you liked it!!


	4. An abism of water and an abism of light

The moon was full, lighting the dark streets of Paris.

Cosette left the house and ran down the street to the doctor’s house as quick as the crinoline of her skirt let her. It wasn’t too far from where they lived, only a couple of streets away, but the sooner she got back home with the doctor, the better.

She rolled up the skirt of her dress so she could run faster, under the indecent look of some men who were going back home after a day of work, but she didn’t care about that, not at the moment.

She reached the doctor’s place in just a couple of minutes. She knocked the door and a man in his fifties opened it, wearing a nightgown.

"What's the matter?" -he asked while he went to change his clothes.

"I think he is waking up"

The doctor's house wasn't a very big one, though he had a well paid job. Cosette stayed at the door waiting for the doctor to come back home with her.

He appeared from his room wearing a coat and a hat, took his briefcase from the floor and placed it on the table. The doctor took some bottles from a shelving, put them inside his briefcase and came back to the door where Cosette was waiting for him.

They ran all the way to la rue de L'Homme Armé and reached the number 4 in a matter of minutes. They entered the house breathing heavily to meet Toussaint, who was waiting for them at the entrance.

"Hurry up" -She said.

They went upstairs to Enjolras' room where Monsieur Fauchelevent and Grantaire were sitting next to his bed.

"Oh, good night Monsieur" -said Fauchelevent when he noticed the new arrivals.

Grantaire was sobbing with his gaze fixed on Enjolras, nothing new.

The wounded boy was muttering, semi unconscious with a shallow breathing.

"I think I have something for that" -the doctor searched for something in his briefcase and took one of the little bottles out of it. He poured some of the content of the bottle on a spoon and forced it down Enjolras' throat. The boy coughed a couple of times opening his eyes when he felt the intrusion, he looked at Grantaire with a confused look and met the other boy's desperate and swollen eyes. Enjolras blinked sleepy feeling the effects of the drug before falling back into the unconsciousness.

"It's laudanum" -said the doctor-. "It's a strong substance, it will help him with the pain but it will make him numb and sleepy" -he put his hand on Enjolras' forehead-. "He isn't feverish, which is a good sign, there is no infection".

He had a concerned look on his eyes.

"Did he… did he notice about his leg?"

"No, no, I don't think so" -Monsieur Fauchelevent answered-. "I think he was having a nightmare".

"Good. It won't be easy, losing a limb never is, but it is better than losing your life, for certain" -the doctor handled the bottle to Fauchelevent-. "Give this to him when he wakes up again, it will numb the pain".

"Thank you, monsieur"

He hadn't been himself in the past two weeks.

How could he if everything he had known was now a lie?

Javert deambulated the streets with his head empty, thinking about nothing at all and everything at the same time. He didn't know where he was going, he just needed to get out of his rooms or he was going to go mad. So he went out for a walk, the first time in two weeks that he was going outside, since sixth of June. He had barely eaten or slept and the day his coworkers went looking for him, he kicked them out of his rooms violently.

Life was a nonsense mess and law was the only thing keeping it from falling to the chaos. But now he knew that the law was not as incorruptible as he thought it was. He had always believed that the world was divided in two, good and bad, white and black. But the truth was that the world was composed of different shades of gray. Nothing was completely bad or completely good, completely wrong or completely right. There was nothing like a good or a bad person. A Saint was not completely good and a criminal was not completely bad. They were different shades of gray, but gray after all.

And as humans weren't perfect, whatever they made wasn't perfect either. Like laws, made by humans. They had mistakes, they weren't perfect, they weren't just. What sense had his life if it was dedicated to a thing such as human laws?

He was walking down the lonely road on his own, with his head looking down to the pavement, when he heard the sound of the river.

_Friends, the hour in which we live, and in which I speak to you, is a gloomy hour, but of such is the terrible price of the future. A revolution is a toll-gate. Oh! the human race shall be delivered, uplifted and consoled! We affirm it on this barricade. Whence shall arise the shout of love, if it be not from the summit of sacrifice? O my brothers, here is the place of junction between those who think and those who suffer; this barricade is made neither of paving-stones, nor of timbers, nor of iron; it is made of two mounds, a mound of ideas and a mound of sorrows. Misery here encounters the ideal. Here day embraces night, and says: I will die with thee and thou shalt be born again with me. From the pressure of all desolations faith gushes forth. Sufferings bring their agony here, and ideas their immortality. This agony and this immortality are to mingle and compose our death. Brothers, he who dies here dies in the radiance of the future, and we are entering a grave illumined by the dawn._

The words he had once said echoed in the air.

Once again, the blinding light surrounded him.

He had been there for a long time but he didn't know how much exactly. Maybe years, or decades, or maybe even centuries.  
He was alone this time.

There was no floor, no walls, no roof. Just light.

The days and nights didn't pass there, there was no time in that place, only light.

Enjolras started walking through that light -no, not walking, floating- to see if he could find anyone. It was the first time he was alone there.

The first person who received him when he first arrived was his grandfather, the father of his mother. He was a good man, always smiling and with a book on his hands. The only person of his family who accepted his political views. The only person of his family who accepted him for who he was. He died when his grandson was sixteen, and Enjolras had missed him very deeply since then.

Same of his friends also received him there: Combeferre, Courfeyrac, Feuilly, Bahorel, Joly, Bossuet and Jehan. They were not happy though, they didn't want him to be there.

"You have to go back" -said a very concerned Combeferre-, "you don't belong here yet".

He did not understand what his friend, his right hand man, meant to say, but it didn't matter, not in that place. Nothing mattered much there.

Sometimes he could hear voices that no other person there could hear. One of them was a familiar one: Grantaire's voice. He couldn't explain why, his thoughts were numb in that place. He didn't know who the other voices belonged to. Their words made no sense and he tried without success to shut them up by shouting as loud as he could to hear nothing but his own voice, it made him angry to be the only one who could hear them.

"You haven't eaten anything since yesterday, you have to eat something" -he heard then as he kept moving forward. It was one of the unfamiliar voices.

"I don't want to leave him alone" -it was Grantaire's now.

He went desperate. He didn't know where everyone else had gone or why they had left him there on his own.

A brief flash of Grantaire's desperate eyes crossed his now slow mind. Enjolras remembered then waking up on a bed to an agonizing, stabbing pain crossing his body just before going back to the light to see that everyone had disappeared.

What the hell had that been? Maybe he had dreamed it?

Enjolras would ask his friends when he finds them.

He saw then a door.

He had never seen a door there. There was nothing in that place. Nothing. So a door was not normal.

He followed his instincts and accelerated his march to reach the door as quickly as he could.

And then, he crossed it.

It was midday, the summer sun was shining on the outside and the birds wouldn't stop singing in the whole city. The eggs had hatched and the nests were now filled with baby birds. 

Grantaire was sitting on his bed, next to Enjolras', drawing on a sketchbook Monsieur Fauchelevent had found for him.

He drew things from his day to day: The view from the window, the plants in the garden, the birds on their nests, Enjolras…

The door to his room slid open. It was Cosette wearing a fancy dress and her hair in a bun.

"How is he?" -She asked.

"The same since yesterday evening" -Enjolras was still sleeping under the effects of laudanum.

"I'm going out to see Marius, would you go with me?"

"No, no, I have to stay here. Excuse me to Marius, I'm being a terrible friend".

"Papa is not going with me, he said he would stay here. And look at what a beautiful day it is, wouldn't you like to get out of these four walls?"

"I would love to, I assure you, but the last time I left my friends alone…"

"Don't say that, there was nothing you could do about it" -Cosette walked across the room to sit next to Grantaire and covered one of his hands with her owns. "And I'm sure that, in Heaven, they are very proud of you for keeping on fighting" -Grantaire's eyes went wet and Cosette wiped away his tears with a handkerchief-. "You haven't eaten anything since yesterday, you have to eat something".

She moved her head in the door's direction to tell him to go to the kitchen for something.

"I don't want to leave him alone".

"Ok then, I'll bring here something for you, what do you want, pastries?"

"No need, I'm not really hungry".

"Pastries then".

And right after she left the room, a well known voice, though weak and speaking with a small voice, called for him.

"Taire?"

His heart was pounding as he started panicking.

"Enjolras"

Enjolras' eyes were fully open now. His jaw clenched trying not to cry out with the pain, though it was lessened due to the laudanum still doing effect on his body.

"Where… where are we?"

Cosette had entered the room again with the plate of pastries in her hands and stood still looking at both young men.

"I'm going to tell papa" -She said leaving the pastries on the night table and going out of the room again.

"We are safe here" -Grantaire assured to the very weak Enjolras.

Monsieur Fauchelevent entered the room with Cosette after him and sat next to Grantaire.

"It's ok son, it's ok. You are at my house, safe, nothing will harm you or your friend here".  
Enjolras tried to remember where he had seen that man's face, he didn't know where he had seen him, but somehow he knew he could trust him-. "Are you in pain?". 

Enjolras nodded.

"Monsieur…"

"Do you want me to give you something to numb the pain?"

"Please".

Fauchelevent opened the night table's drawer to take out the bottle of laudanum the doctor had left there the night before.

When he looked up again to the other three, Cosette and Grantaire were looking panicked at Enjolras, and Enjolras was looking panicked at the feet of his bed. He didn't care anymore about the pain, no when he suspected something that horrifying about his own body.

Enjolras took the blanket away with his good arm to see what was hiding under it, or more exactly what wasn't hiding under it. He went pale, even paler than he had been at his worst days after the barricades. The time froze. No one knew what to say. No words could comfort him at that moment.

Enjolras spoke, with his voice cracking. A single tear ran down his cheek.

"I want to be alone". 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, I live Cosette, that's it, that's the note.  
> Also thank you for so much to everyone leaving comments, you guys are so nice!! You have no idea of the way your comments warm my heart. Take care of yourselfs, stay safe, ily. Hope you like the chapter!!


	5. Aftermaths

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know what this chapter is, I'll just drop it and hope it makes sense.

"I want to be alone"

Enjolras stared horrified at the stump on his leg, missing above the knee, bandages covering all of what was left of his leg.

He was willing to die at the barricade, and he knew that, if he lived, he would have to live with the consequences. But still, he wasn't prepared for this. He was now a cripple. He, who had been so physically skilled at close combat, so fast at running on persecutions, was now unable to fight like he always had, unable to fight on a revolution for his beliefs. Enjolras felt useless, small, defenceless and he went angry. Angry with the world, with the society, with the people and with himself.

"I want to be alone" -he repeated, his voice, though weak, sounded more fierce this time.

Grantaire was sobbing.

"Enjolras, please".

“I won’t repeat it a third-” A wave of agonizing pain silenced the end of his sentence as a cry slipped out of his lips. He closed his eyes tightly and clenched his jaw in pain.

“Where are Combeferre and Joly when you need them?”-muttered Enjolras with a small voice.

Grantaire felt sick.

A flash of Combeferre looking up to the sky with his chest pierced by three blades of bayonets crossed Enjolras’ memory. Gunpowder, blasts, screams, tears, blood, death. He opened his eyes again with a terrified look of realization.

“No…” -He turned to Grantaire with tears in his eyes, imploring him to deny the reality, looking him in the eye desperately. Seeing Enjolras like that was breaking Grantaire's heart even further- “no… they…”

As a reply, Grantaire bowed his head, breaking eye contact.

“All of them?” -Enjolras had seen them falling death to the ground as he opened the door of the Corinthe and faced an entire army on his own, but still, he kept the hope that they had lived to tell.

Grantaire didn’t answer so Fauchelevent took his word.

“Marius Pontmercy is alive and on his way to recovery, but I fear the rest of your friends didn’t have that luck, I'm sorry, I’m truly sorry”.

His comrades, his friends, his brothers. Dead. He had failed them.

Bahorel’s dirty jokes, the funny anecdotes about his parent’s farm and his boxing advices. Prouvaire’s beautiful verses that would make the most heartless person cry and the hypnotic melody of his flute sounding like a sirens chant. Feuilly’s History lessons about class struggle through the centuries and all the children he brought to the café with the duty of teaching them how to read or write. Bossuet’s way to always laugh despite his bad luck and find the good in every situation. The way Joly touched the tip of his nose with his cane and all those eccentric things he used to do. Courfeyrac always knowing different ways of cheering everyone up, the sound of his laugh, the light his persona gave off. Combeferre, Enjolras’ closest friend, his right hand man, correcting him for good, his pacifist ways of ending troubles, his reprimanding eyes behind his glasses, his wise words.

All those things were now condemned to fade in the fog of the past. His friends were condemned to fade in the fog of the past.

He was the one who should have died -Enjolras was convinced of that-, but there he was, alive. A leader has to die beside his comrades. A leader is nothing without someone to lead. And Enjolras was nothing without his friends to lean on them. They were his family, his joy, his hope. But he was not going to see them again any time soon.

He hoped their deaths had been quick and without much pain, he hoped that, wherever they were, they would forgive him for failing the Republic, for failing them.

A loud sob coming from Grantaire took him out from his thoughts. “Long live the Republic, I’m one of them” -Enjolras remembered Grantaire’s words as if he had said them decades ago. The image of the cynic standing in front of the National Guard without any fear came to his memory. Grantaire asking him to die by his side, the rough touch of his hand as he grabbed it, the numbing pain, Grantaire’s green eyes. And then, darkness. No, not darkness: a blinding light.

Enjolras tried to incorporate himself on the bed, but another wave of pain stopped him from moving. Cosette took the bottle of laudanum from her father's hands and poured some of it into a little spoon she found on the night table's drawer.

"Open your mouth" -She said, handing it to Enjolras-, "this will help with the pain".

Enjolras didn't think it twice and obeyed, he was too weak and tired to offer opposition. The medication started to take effect just a minute after and the bulk of the pain faded, making him feel sleepy and out of his senses. He only had time to say one last thing before falling asleep again: "Grantaire" -he called-, "I'm proud of you".

Grantaire didn't know if Enjolras had said such a thing just because he was under the effects of a strong drug or if he really meant it, but either way, he smiled through the tears, his heart warming. It was for certain the first time someone had said that to him, and the fact that it had been Enjolras who said it meant the world to Grantaire.

"Why?" - He asked, but Enjolras was already asleep.

  


Days passed, Enjolras used to spend most of the time asleep due to the laudanum and the tiredness that caused him the amount of blood loss. When he was awake, he didn't speak a lot, and when he did, the only words he achieved to articulate were just monosyllables.

Enjolras had a gloomy look, he was not sad, he was devastated, not only because of the missing limb, but for everything they had lost, everyone they had lost.

He talked with the doctor a couple of times about his recovery. His wounds on the abdomen, the shoulder and the thigh, though still not closed, were on their way to recovery. The amputation wound on his stump looked better, the stitches were making them close faster than the others. He knew it didn’t make sense, but he could still feel the pain on the missing part of his leg. It was an intense pain, like if someone was chopping his limb inch by inch. He could feel a part of his body that wasn’t there anymore. Enjolras told the doctor about this and he said it was something common between some people with amputated limbs, but it used to fade, at least the bulk of it, with the time. Phantom pain, the doctor had called it.

They would have to find crutches for him to move around when the rest of his wounds were better and maybe, though it would take time and effort to learn how to walk with it, a prosthetic leg.

It had passed three weeks since June 6th. Enjolras’ memories from the barricades were blurry, he was only able to remember fragments of what happened there whenever he had a vivid flashback, which were rather terrifying. Whenever he had one, he dissociated, being physically in Fauchelevent’s house, but not mentally. Shooting death the artillery sergeant, the blood of that man he shot splashing his face, that boy, Gavroche, singing until the bullets silenced his chant, watching his friends die once again. 

Monsieur Fauchelevent and Grantaire explained to him what had happened after he was shot. That Fauchelevent had found them on the second floor of the Corinthe, that they had gotten out of the barricades with Marius and him unconscious being carried by the man. He was very grateful to the man for saving them, letting them stay at his house and risking himself to be accused of covering-up republicans.Enjolras owe him his life. 

Monsieur Fauchelevent had written a letter to Enjolras’ parents telling them what happened and encouraging them to come to visit their son. Enjolras didn’t have the energy to write it himself, so Fauchelevent did him the favor.

He didn’t have a specially good relationship with his mother, she was a cold woman, but she loved his son in her way. 

He couldn’t say the same about his father. He was colder than his wife, more severe. He was never at home, and the little time he was there, Enjolras had never seen him show any emotion. He never cried or smiled, at least not in front of his family. 

No one expected a child with a flame as bright as Enjolras’ to be born in a family like that. He could be cold sometimes, but the passion he had inside him burned so brightly that just a spark on his eyes could start a fire. 

His father was obsessed with the fortune of the family, to make his family name one of the most importants of France. With growing his industries. His family was already a very important one, they were rich burgoises, but his father wanted to be even bigger. He wanted his family to grow, the more sons you have, the more possibilities there are for you to grow the relevance of your name and blood lineage. 

Enjolras was their only son, not because they didn’t want to have more, they had tried, Enjolras was born after two abortions due to complications during the pregnancy. They had tried to have more childs, but Madame Enjolras had difficulties getting pregnant. Four years after Enjolras was born, she gave birth to a baby girl, who was born dead. That event caused a strong impact on the woman and they had decided to stop trying. 

Enjolras was the only one who could continue with their lineage, but having descendance was not on his life plans. He didn’t have any life plans at all now. 

Grantaire’s frame of mind was getting better as Enjolras started to be awake more often. His flame was so light that, even now that it was weak, it was capable of illuminating Grantaire’s dark heart and making him be someone again. 

He was fighting against his need for alcohol. It was taking him a big effort, but the fact that he didn’t go out much -not because he was prohibited, he had talked with Fauchelevent about that and they agreed that, since he wasn’t well known in republican circles, the authorities probably weren’t looking for his head, but because he was mourning his friends in his own way-, and the fact that Monsieur Fauchelevent hid all the wine and liquors he could find in the house as a way to help a little, helped a great deal with his purpose. 

Though slowly, they both were healing.

When the initial shock about his situation passed, Enjolras started to be a little more talkative, he was still not himself, though he had always been a rather quiet person.

Enjolras found Monsieur Fauchelevent’s company very pleasant, he was not a common old man -he didn’t talk a lot and for what Enjolras could tell, he didn’t have any friends- and there was something in him telling him that something worried the man, but he was kind and he cared about their well being. The fact that he went to the barricades just to save the loved one of his daughter proved that he loved that lady with every ounce of his heart and that fascinated him.

Cosette was an angel, there wasn’t another word to describe her. She was kind and caring, like her father but in a different way. Her existence was like a breath of fresh air in summer, she lighted the life of everyone around her with her smile and kind words.

He still had those dreams where he was floating in the nothingness with his friends and other people from the past there. They were less frequent now, and now, while dreaming, he was only capable of watching his friends from the distance, and they didn’t seem to notice his presence. He decided he wouldn’t tell Grantaire about this, at least not now. 

  


The night was closed.

There was a wolf walking the streets, but no one seemed to be scared of its presence, not like they used to be when the wolf used to wear a uniform. 

No one looked at him twice, he was not feared anymore.

Not since he dressed just like a citizen more.

Javert walked the rue d’Homme Armé meditating each step.

He wasn’t going there because he wanted to, he needed it.

Otherwise he was going to drown. 

Marius was sitting on a couch at Monsieur Fauchelevent’s house, next to Cosette in the room where Enjolras and Grantaire had installed themselves. 

He was feeling a lot better now, though his arm was still on a sling to prevent it from moving and worsening the bullet wound on his shoulder, which was still closing. 

It was always Cosette who went to visit him at his grandfather’s house and not otherwise so he wanted to change that. 

He also came to see Enjolras and Grantaire with his own eyes and make sure that they were really alive. He was not especially close with them, his best friend had been Courfeyrac, but he hadn’t had a lot of friends in his life, so these two were the closest thing to a friend he had now. 

Enjolras was awake that evening, listening in silence to everything the others had to say. They were just chatting about banal things, but he liked to hear the sound of their voices, they reminded him that he was not alone and that this was real and he wasn't in one of those flashbacks. 

Monsieur Fauchelevent was sitting on a couch on a corner, looking at his daughter and her beloved with a melancholic look. 

Marius was in good humor that night, talking and talking non stop to Cosette about everything with an energetic tone. Marius' good hand was clasped with Cosette’s on her lap. She listened, looking him in the eye with a kind smile. It was more than obvious they were madly in love with each other. 

“And, with your grandfather being the way he is, how on Earth did you meet les amis?” -Interrumped Cosette. 

A mischievous smile drew in Grantaire’s face. He looked at Enjolras, who looked back at him as like warning him not to destroy Marius. But he ignored the advertance. 

“Oh dear, are you sure you want to know?” -said Grantaire to Cosette. 

“Of course!” -She exclaimed-, “well, only if it’s fine for the three of you,” -She looked at them, asking for permission. She wanted to make sure it wasn’t too painful for any of them to talk about their friends-. “I don’t want to make any of you feel uncomfortable”. 

“No, no, it's fine, right Enjolras?” Enjolras nodded slightly as an answer. 

“No, it’s not fine” -said Marius-, “it was embarrassing”. 

“Ok, now I’m more curious about it than before”. 

Grantaire got up from his chair and took Cosette from Marius to sit on his bed with her. Marius tried to put on an indignant expression, but he was holding on to laughter.

“Don’t worry I will tell you” -he said putting his arm around Cosette shoulders-. “It was the year of our Lord 1828, it was winter, I remember that because just a couple of days before I was so drunk I almost fell on the fireplace. By the way, I’ve been sober for like a month, aren’t you all proud of me?”

“I think I should narrate the story instead, you ramble too much and it’s my story after all” -intervened Marius. 

“Go ahead Monsieur Bonapartiste”. 

“What?” 

“So, 1828” -said Marius with an urgent tone-. “I had found out my father fought with Napoleon, and I was angry with my grandfather, very angry. But that’s not the issue”. 

“He became a bonapartist to piss off his grandfather or something like that” 

“Yeah… I was not going to say it that way, Grantaire, but…” -Marius suddenly changed his cheerful expression to a serious one when he knew he would have to mention his friend to continue with the story- “Courfeyrac basically adopted me, and he introduced me to les amis without telling me that they were republicans. And maybe, just maybe, I tried to prove to them that Napoleon wasn’t as bad as they were saying”. 

“No, no, stop it, you didn’t try to prove that he wasn’t bad, you tried to prove that he was the best man who ever lived” -clarified Grantaire-. “Those are very different things”.

“Anyways, I think I said something like “what greater thing is there?” or something like that and...” 

“To be free” -said Enjolras. His voice was weak, fighting the sleepiness the laudanum caused him-. “That’s what Combeferre replied”.

They all turned toward him, surprised by his intervention. 

“To be free” -Marius repeated-. “He really disarmed me with just three words and then you said something like “my mother is the Republic” and you finished Combeferre’s duty of killing me”.

Enjolras drew a half smile on his face, it pained him to hear the name of his friend, reminding him that he was never coming back. None of them were coming back. But he also knew that they had to keep their memory alive.

Toussaint opened the door then and spoke with urgency. 

“There is a man knocking at the door, do I let him in?” 

Monsieur Fauchelevent went pale, the others looked at each other. 

No one was expecting any visit, no one ever came to visit at the number 4 of the rue d’Homme Armé. 

“I’ll go” -Monsieur Fauchelevent got up and left the room under the nervous gaze of the others. 

He knew who it was. 

It could only be him.

So he wasn’t surprised when he saw him behind the door when he opened it.

He only wished he would let alone those boys he was hiding, they had suffered enough already. 

“Goodnight Valjean” 

“Javert”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Maybe, just maybe, I wrote like half of the chapter while drunk.  
> Don't worry I corrected it sober.  
> Please don't be like me I'm not a model role.  
> Also if you're reading this, stop what you are doing right now and drink water.  
> Stay safe!


	6. The wolf and the Saint

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is mainly Javert and Valjean centric, don't worry if you are not very interested in their storyline, the next chapter is more amis centric, but this one was necessary.  
> <3<3<3

There was a moment where none of them spoke for a while. Valjean and Javert stared at each other not knowing exactly what to do next. Their hearts were beating very fast inside their chests. Finally, Valjean decided to break the ice:

“You came”.

“I came”.

The silence fell upon them once again. That was it, he was going to get arrested and live behind the bars once again. Valjean heard steps and murmurs coming from the stairs. This is not how he had planned to tell Cosette about his past, in fact he didn’t have planned to tell Cosette. The fear that she would hate and reject him terrified him more than anything.

Javert bowed his head.

“Listen...”

“No, listen to me first” -cutted Valjean-. “I saved your life three weeks ago, I didn’t do it to get something on exchange, but then I didn’t know what was going to happen later… I…” -He stopped for a second choosing carefully his words- “I will not try to stop you, I know that your duty is to arrest me, but there is something…”

“No, stop right there, what brings me here is not my duty as a agent”

Valjean blinked confused.

“I don’t think I understand”

A shadow crossed the grayish eyes of the inspector, his voice sounded gloomy:

“I no longer work in the name of the Law”

They stared at each other in silence again for a second.

“Do you want to come in?” -Valjean offered with a gentle voice.

The inspector didn’t _want_ to come in, but he followed the other man inside the house, taking off his hat, because there was no other option left for him now, not after he decided to reject the other option that was left for him and that had something to do with bridges, rivers and ending tragically with his life. No, he had to learn how to become a better person, and paradoxically, Valjean would be a good teacher, even if it made him feel sick.

There were two silhouettes watching them stealthily from the stairs. Valjean noticed that they were Cosette and Grantaire. They had left the wounded boys at the care of Toussaint.

“Papa…” -the voice of the girl he had adopted as his daughter several years ago rumbled in the silence.

“Go upstairs you two, it’s fine”. -They didn’t move at first, but Valjean made an urgent gesture at them and they left.

He was now more curious than scared after the declarations of the inspector.

“You are well accompanied, as I can see” -Said Javert looking at the stairs as the girl and the young man left.

“I suspect that the people I have around me are not what brings you here” Javert sat down on the couch in front of Valjean.

“Your suspicions are right”

“So?”

The inspector looked away breathing deep, he was about to open up to the man who caused him such sorrow, and yet, the only one who could help him; Valjean examined him with his eyes: his hands were shaking and there was a layer of sweat covering his forehead. Javert looked far more agitated than Valjean was. He was still expectant for what the other man could want for him if it was not taking away his liberty. He noticed then that Javert had started hyperventilating.

“Are you alright, monsieur?”

Javert looked at his feet, frowning his eyebrows.

“No” -he said-, “no, I’m not”.

Valjean did not understand anything of what was happening, he stared at the man, his curiosity growing into concern, waiting for him to explain himself.

“I…” -started Javert after a moment. He looked up to Valjean. What was he doing there? Sitting in the living room of a man who should hate him, but instead choose to not only forgive him but to save his life? He realized how ridiculous he must look at that moment, so exposed and vulnerable. The embarrassment he was feeling made him feel sick- “I sorry, I shouldn't have come here”.

He made an attempt to stand up from the couch but Valjean stopped him before he could leave his seat.

“You came here for something, what’s it?”

“I came for help” -said the inspector with a shaky voice as he sat down once again.

Help? Why would a police inspector need help from a convict he had chased for so long? He was not on duty, he realized, so it probably had to be something that had nothing to do with his job. Javert was not wearing his uniform, he didn’t look as fierce without it on. His peasant clothes mixed with his visible state of desperation made him look miserable. Valjean felt pity for him.

“And how can I help you?” -asked Valjean nicely.

Javert looked at him in the eye with anger. He was angry, vexed. How could he be so nice and welcoming with someone who made his life a nightmare? Javert felt hatred for Valjean for that, for not hating him. He felt like he deserved to be hated. But he did everything at his power to hide that hate because he really needed help. Javert sighed.

“It’s… It’s complicated”

“Take your time”

“I…” -Javert said after a solid fifty seconds- “I have quit my position as an officer” - Javert paused, like waiting for a response from Valjean, but the other man simply stared at him-. “And the reason for that is that I’m…” -Javert paused for a second searching for the right word- “lost”.

The room was dark and they could barely see each other’s faces, but Valjean did notice the shadow crossing Javert's gaze as he pronounced the last word. Valjean looked at him in the eye.

“And” -Javert continued- “I have come to the conclusion that you are the only person who can help me to find my way back to sanity".

Valjean settled in his couch and cleared his throat.

"Believe me when I say I truly want to help, but I don't know how".

"I need answers, Valjean"

“Answers?”

“You heard me”

Valjean stirred. He didn’t trust Javert completely, how could he after all those years? But there was something broken, desperate in his voice that convinced him that the no-longer-inspector was being honest about his situation.

“ _You promised to help anyone who needs it_ ” -Valjean reminded himself- “ _Anyone_ ”.

“Ask the questions then”

Javert stared at him in the eye for a long moment, analyzing his gaze to see if he could find any trace of mockery in it, but there wasn’t. Javert spoke with a sharp voice:

“Why didn’t you kill me that day?”

“Oh” -gasped Valjean surprised-, “so that was the matter”.

Javert went to the barricade as a spy, and when the students found out his real identity, they made him prisoner to shoot him later. But Valjean saved his life, he asked Enjolras if he could take charge of Javert and he accepted. Valjean could have killed him in that moment, but instead he not only spared his life, he also settled him free and gave him his direction so he could arrest him later. Javert needed to understand why. Why he denied the right of dying to someone who didn’t want to live thanks to anyone’s pity. Why Valjean didn’t take his revenge.

“Don’t mock me”.

“I don’t”.

“Just answer”

“The real question is why would I kill you”

“Because I made a Hell out of your life”

“No, it was the Law who did that. You were only a pawn of the system working in the name of the Law, it was your duty to arrest me. But you are not your duty. You are a human being and no one has the right to decide when someone’s life has to end, that decision belongs to God and only to him”.

“You are not the Jean Valjean I met on the prison”

“People can change”

“I don’t think so”

“If you didn’t think so you wouldn’t be here”

After a moment of silence Javert’s voice sounded desperate:

“Then show me how to change”

Valjean looked him in the eye for a couple of seconds before standing up from his couch.

“Where are you going?”

“Wait here, I’ll be back in a second”

Cosette was sitting on the floor near the stairs, hearing in secret the conversation that the two men were having. She was in shock. Did that man call his father Jean Valjean? Who was that Jean Valjean? It was not his father. But why didn’t he correct him from his mistake? And it seemed that they knew each other, right? Then, why would he call him by a name that was not his?

_“You are not the Jean Valjean I met on the prison”_

The prison?

Valjean came back to the living room with a pair of candlesticks on his hands. He put them on the table between Javert and him as he sat down back on the couch.

“What are those for?” -Asked Javert confused.

“They are just candlesticks”

“Is this some kind of joke?” -Javert sounded offended

“No” -assured Valjean-. “Didn’t you want to know how I changed for good?”

“Yes”

“Then these are important to understand the story”

Javert didn’t look very convinced.

“So?”

Valjean breathed deep and accommodated himself on the seat. He knew that Cosette was listening, he could feel her presence on the stairs, he only wished that she wouldn't hate him, his heart couldn't get over that.

“When I got out of jail my heart was full of hate. I blamed everyone for my situation. I hated every single person for turning their back on me when I needed someone to rely on” -He stopped for a second to see if Javert was following the story-. “But then someone helped me. He was sent by God to guide me out the dark place I was. And what I did? Stole all his silver”.

“Weren’t you convincing me that people can change? That’s not something a good person would do”.

“That’s something a _desperate_ person would do” -Valjean corrected-. “He lied to the authorities to save me, he said that he gave me the silver. That day I promised myself to change and to become a better person. I kept the candlesticks he gave me to remind me that there will always be a light, no matter how dark is the place you are in. There will always be hope”.

Javert sighed and started to move his leg nervously. He breathed deeply trying to relax himself. He didn’t expect Valjean to be nice to him or to even answer his question.

“Papa?” Cosette came down from the stairs followed by Marius, who was trying unsuccessfully to stop her.

Valjean froze.

He saw there were tears in her eyes. She went directly to her father’s arms and hid her face in his shirt collar.

“How-” -Valjean stuttered, his voice cracking- “How much have you heard?”

“Enough”

“Oh, my dear, I’m so sorry” -Valjean’s voice was now a whisper- “I’m so sorry”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I should leave” -said Javert getting up abruptly from his seat. Valjean lifted his head to look to the other man.

“Wait, is there someone waiting for you at home?”

“No” -Javert answered sharply.

“Then stay here with us, please” -Valjean was worried Javert would take a drastic decision if he stayed alone in that state-. “At least until you have your ideas clearer”.

Javert thought about it for a moment. Was he going to accept more hospitality and kindness from the man he chased all these years? He wanted to change. He needed to change so he wouldn’t drown. He didn’t want to drown, not now.

“All right”.

“But first I need to know if you understand that the Law can have it’s holes and mistakes” -Javert nodded- “and that not everything that is illegal is necessarily bad”.

“Yes, yes, where are you going with this?”

“I need you to promise me that whoever you see in this house you will not turn any of us in” Javert looked fearful. “Who on Earth do you have here hidden?”

“Promise it”

Javert thought about it for a moment. What else could he do?

“I promise it”

Valjean turned towards Cosette, his voice sounded gentle though filled with angst.

“Cosette, my child, I wish you can forgive me one day, we will talk later”

“Forgive you? There is nothing to forgive”

“Don’t you hate me now that you know my truth?” -Valjean’s voice cracked as he spoke, tears filling his eyes.

“Hate you? How could I hate someone who has been through such a Hell and still gets to turn into a caring and loving person?” -Cosette caressed her father’s cheek with her hand, wiping away a tear- “I love you papa, never doubt that. But you could have told me all of this a long time ago”.

Valjean looked at the child he had raised as his own in the eye, she was not a child anymore, she was a wise young woman, filled with love, kindness and understanding.

“I know that now, I beg you to forgive me for not telling you”.

Javert cleared his throat.

Valjean got up from the couch and made an indication to Javert to do the same.

“Come with me upstairs”

Cosette followed them. They found Marius sitting on the stairs, looking with distrust at both men. He heard enough, Cosette was in charge of an ex-convict and the other man was the police officer who was at the barricades as a spy, the one who gave him two guns when he went to demand Thénardier’s will to murder. But still, that ex-convict had saved his life, had saved his friends and had raised a girl who had turned out to be the most pure creature he had ever met. He couldn’t ever thank that man enough. If Monsieur Fauchelevent, or Valjean, or however his real name was trusted Javert, he had to trust him too.

Javert turned towards Valjean, eyes about to pop out of their sockets.

“You are hiding a criminal!”

“He is not a criminal”

“He was at the revolt, he had killed people!”

“You promised you wouldn't turn anyone in”

Javert stayed silent for a moment. He sighed.

“All right, is _this_ all you wanted to show me?”

Marius looked at Valjean frowning, and then at Javert, and then at Cosette. She grasped his good hand to make him understand that there was nothing to fear of.

“Let’s all of us go upstairs” -said Valjean.

Javert and Marius exchanged a look filled with untrust with each other before following Valjean upstairs. They reached the closed door of the room where Enjolras was lying. Valjean turned to Javert and talked with a severe voice:

“All right, you have to try to not enter in panic, breathe slowly and please be gentle, he’s still going through a big deal and I’m not sure if he’s mentally prepared to see you, but I think that he has the right to know that you are staying here”

“Oh for God’s sake, who is he? Are you hiding another insurgent?”

The door opened and a head with dark brown curls popped out of it.

“Who is him?” -asked Grantaire gravely- “Is he someone we can trust, monsieur?”

“Don’t worry, I know him” -Said Valjean to the young man before turning to Javert-. “This is Jean-Louis Grantaire, he did not actively participated on the revolution, he is under my protection. My daughter, Cosette, and…” -he looked at Marius for a moment, trying to find the correct word- “her dearest friend, Marius Pontmercy”.

“Who is him?” -repeated Grantaire.

“He is a police inspector” -said Marius.

“I’m no longer one, kid” -replied the aforementioned.

Javert looked inside the room when he saw a bunch of unmistakable blond curls lying messy on a pillow.

“You are hiding the leader?” -Javert’s voice sounded more choleric than he pretended to.

“Javert…”

 _“The leader!”_ -repeated Javert- “You know they want his head, right? They want to execute him for his crimes. They have people searching for the leaders of the revolt everywhere, no doubt they are going to find him, they have arrested some of them already. And then what? They will accuse you of covering up a dangerous republican and you will end up again in jail”.

“That will not happen because no one suspects that he is hiding here, and if someone was, am I not an expert in hiding from the police?”

Javert looked at him, rolling his eyes. Valjean looked at Enjolras, his gaze was fixed on the wall in front of him, he didn’t seem to notice the people at the door. That was a bad sign.

“Javert, please, relax. All of them are going through a great deal, especially Enjolras. You promised you wouldn't turn them in, fulfill your promise”.

“The last time I saw him he gave me to you to kill me”. -splitted Javert.

“What?” -Grantaire was not understanding anything of what was happening.

“He was a spy on the barricade” -explained Marius.

“Then forgive him” -said Valjean to Javert.

“I don’t know if I can do that”

“That’s something you will have to learn: forgiveness”.

Javert mumbled something to himself and looked at Valjean for a long moment in the eye with his eyebrows lifted.

“Could you tell me which is the room I’m staying in, if you are so kind?”

“So…”

“I’m not turning the kid in, that’s not my business anymore”

Valjean smiled and accompanied him to the spare room.

“You are already making progress”

Grantaire, Marius and Cosette stayed where they were, looking at each other for a while, not knowing exactly what to say, not knowing exactly what did just happen.

A sob coming from inside the room caught their attention. Enjolras’ face was filled with tears, he was still looking at the wall. All signs pointed to he was dissociating, probably having flashbacks. Grantaire ran beside him, followed by the other two. He took his hands, pressing them as he tried to calm him down.

“It’s fine Enjolras, you’re safe, I’m here” The blond man closed his eyes tightly as the tears crossed his face, he was shaking.

“Please, Enjolras, come back to us, it’s fine, you are fine”.

Grantaire wasn’t used to be the strong one, there had always been someone else there to be strong for him. But that time was gone and now it was him who had to be strong, because Enjolras, who had always been so unbreakable, was now broken and needed someone to rely on, and given the circumstances they would have to make do with him. Because Grantaire was -apart from Enjolras, and maybe Marius, though he wasn’t very frequent there- the only thing left of their extrange family formed from friendship.

Marius had those flashbacks sometimes, though they were less frequent than Enjolras’. Grantaire didn’t, he spent all the bulk of the revolution sleeping, after all he didn’t see all the horrible things the other two went through, but he had nightmares most of the nights and sometimes, not everyday, he would have hallucinations caused by the alcohol withdrawal and Monsieur Fauchelevent would do everything in his power to bring him back to the real world.

They were all dealing with grief and trauma.

Enjolras eyes’ finally met Grantaire's, they looked more lucid than before. He was back.

Enjolras noticed that his own face was wet, he had been crying.

“What happened?”

In that moment Monsieur Fauchelevent entered the room with an apologetic look.

“It think I owe all of you an explanation”

Valjean, or Fauchelevent, or whoever he was, sat on the edge of the bed and, for the first time, told his story, his real story, to someone else.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry if there are monumental grammatical mistakes, English is not my first language. I would also like to apologise because I show my love for Enjolras by making him suffer, the same with Grantaire. I'm sorry.


End file.
